I've always liked trolls as a monster, in Warhammer Fantasy Battle, MERP, Rolemaster, Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Dungeons & Dragons, Runequest, Legend of the Five Rings and other games.

I was in need of a one-shot game to be run at a local convention and was already running a D&D game. So I came up with the idea of the players playing trolls. They were ideal creatures for a one-shot. Easy to play, something most people were familiar with, very durable and slightly different.

The D20 system was chosen for the RPG to use, as many people were familiar with it and the basic mechanics were easy to use. The players would not be using the magic system, only limited races and classes and a selection of special abilities and skills.

My first and only play test was three days before the convention, with my normal D&D group as the guinea pigs. The first adventure only had three players, two of them playing a 2-headed troll and the other one a scrag, which is currently known as a swamp troll. They slew a variety of creatures, terrorized a bridge and finished off the wizard they were hunting down.

A lot of fun was had and several revisions were made to the basic game.

Troll: The Rending ran once at each of ExUniCon '01, '02 and '03. The list of traits and flaws were revised each time, the presentation improved, desert trolls were added and troll culture evolved.

We had many 2-headed trolls, a troll which hid behind the tree it carried, pink fluffy ninja trolls, a 2-headed troll with the Rock, which had to be obeyed, trolls which were added to troll legend, two trolls which had once been a 2-headed troll and always acted in unison and a surprising number of mountain trolls.

The trolls ambushed adventurers, fought and argued with each other, ate smash, guarded bridges, crushed dwarves, disguised themselves as humans, argued with each other again and did a variety of other odd things.

After the 2003 Convention some of the basics of the game were revised. Classes were combined into Traits, the races became more defined, granting starting skills and racial traits. The list of skills was reduced and challenges between trolls defined. The list of Traits was totally reworked and many renamed for flavour reasons. Many of the changes were made to reduce the time to make a troll for a total newbie.

Trolls Online

The trolls found a home online, first at duncansway.com and now here on DunkNET. Small developments continue in the rules and background, but the core game is still the same.